


A Comprehensive Review of Toy Story 4

by E_V_Roslyn (orphan_account)



Category: Toy Story (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Movie: Toy Story 4, Not A Fanfiction, Review, Spoilers, movie review
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 12:49:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19812643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/E_V_Roslyn
Summary: Not a fanfic. I just watched Toy Story 4 and felt so conflicted about the movie I had to type everything out. Here you go. This might follow with a fix-it fic. We'll see.





	A Comprehensive Review of Toy Story 4

The Toy Story franchise is one that has touched the hearts of Pixar fans for over 20 years. We have seen Woody, Buzz, and the rest of the gang go on adventures to help each other through the good times and bad times. They made new friends, helped other toys in need, and understood what it means to be a friend. Their adventures took them to many places and we followed them to the whole way to get back to their kid. Along the way they watched Andy grow up and stood for him his entire childhood until he left for college at the end of Toy Story 3. That well-known scene left us with a little girl named Bonnie, who the toys now belong to. Following the third movie are a handful of Pixar shorts and specials where the gang has mini adventures as Bonnie’s toys.

After all that these toys have been through, Pixar wanted to give us another sequel that promised fans an emotional ending that would rival the Toy Story 3 ending. In this review, I will go over the characters, their personalities, motives, roles, and how they relate to the overall plot of the movie. I will also talk about the plot itself and the messages it sends to the audience. Next, I’ll review the ending, and what this means for the characters and any future content that Pixar might bring us in the future. I’ll finish this analysis off with my overall final thoughts of the movie. If you haven’t watched Toy Story 4 yet, I would strongly recommend you come back to this analysis after watching the movie yourself.

\------------- **SPOILERS BELOW** \---------------

* * *

The movie appropriately starts off with a flashback in Andy’s room when he was still a child. Not only does the movie fill our nostalgic needs with this flashback, but we also get to see how Bo Peep leaves Molly’s bedroom to be given to a new child. This scene was emotional to fans who knew that Woody and Bo were deeply in love. In the third movie, there was a scene where Woody was motivating what was left of the toys in Andy’s room that even though they had seen many toys leave, Andy chose to keep them. Woody made a comment about Bo, and he was still clearly sad that she was gone, even years after their separation.

A little later into the movie, Woody sees what he is sure was Bo’s lamp in an antique store’s window. Woody is hopeful she is in there but doesn’t find her, but another toy, Gabby Gabby, claims to know her. The flashback and the scene of the antique store window build up to Woody and Bo’s official reunion. The reunion itself was of cinematic quality. They see each other for the first time in almost ten years while being played with, so they couldn’t express their excitement for each other. Only after the child drops them and the two of them are away from the immediate danger of being spotted do they properly reunite.

Bo Peep has changed a lot in the nine years she was gone, both physically and mentally. In the first couple of movies, Bo is wearing a pink bonnet and a pink and white dress. She is absent from most of both movies, only playing a role during Andy’s playtime and before and after Woody’s adventures. She’s quiet, loving, collected, and takes on an effeminate role as Woody’s lover who wants to see him return safely. When she’s reunited with Woody in the fourth movie, she had undergone an entire physical change. Her bonnet is replaced with a bow and the pink exterior of her dress is gone, which leaves her with the blue jumpsuit underneath. Her skirt is now a cape, her makeup is redone, and at some point after being donated, her right arm and (implied) left hand broke off. She holds her broken limbs together with medical tape, and when Woody finds out, she reassures him that toys are broken all the time and some kids play rougher than others.

She tells Woody she had another kid after Molly, but it didn’t last long, which left her to stay in the antique store window for two years. In that time, it’s implied that she met and grown to dislike Gabby Gabby and the Bensons. She learned her way around the store and became well known with the toys that meet up under the store to throw parties and keep safe from the dangers of the store. She spent two years on that shelf and decided she wasn’t going to wait around to get a kid and decided to become a lost toy. Bo Peep is now just as, if not more than, adventurous as Woody and Buzz were in the previous movies. Her outgoing attitude is a stark contrast from the toy we knew her as, and many fans are excited about this new change.

Bo and Woody were, and still are, deeply in love even after their time apart. Because Toy Story 4 is a G-Rated movie, they could not show Bo and Woody kissing, and instead showed them hugging. At the end of the first Toy Story, Bo repeatedly kisses Woody all over his face off-screen, and the lipstick stains on Woody are left as evidence. In the second movie, she kisses Buzz on the cheek and tells him to give that kiss to Woody when he sees him, and at the end of that movie Woody is holding Bo by her waist and Buzz and Jessie are holding each other similarly. In this movie, there are scenes where Woody is staring lovingly at Bo when she’s looking away. Woody’s smile is wide and the audience could practically see the hearts in his eyes. Even with this heavy restriction for a younger audience, Pixar still managed to show the extent of their relationship, and this relationship Woody refines with his long lost love helps him make a difficult decision at the end of the movie.

Woody himself has spent the past year or so with the gang and Bonnie. In the shorts that take place after the third movie, Woody appears to be perfectly happy with Bonnie, and they have frequent playtimes together. However, at the beginning of the fourth movie, Bonnie picks up Woody only to take off his Sheriff’s badge to pin it on Jessie and declares her the sheriff of the town instead. Woody is left in the closet and another toy commented on how frequent Bonnie chose not to play with him over other toys. This is parallel to the first movie, where after Andy got Buzz for his birthday, Buzz becomes Andy’s new favorite toy and Woody gets jealous. Here, Woody’s upset because he’s no longer a favorite toy, but this time his jealousy isn’t targeted towards anyone specific, but rather he internalizes it within himself as he does everything he can to be there for a kid who no longer loves him.

At this point, Bonnie has outgrown daycare and is starting kindergarten. She’s upset about this transition and has difficulty making friends during her orientation. Woody follows her to her classroom to give her support, and in the process, leads to Bonnie making a toy made from items Woody pulled from the trash bin, which she names Forky. When Forky comes alive, Woody takes it upon himself alone to parent Forky and teach him what it means to be a toy, even though Forky only wants to be thrown away. When Bonnie and her parents go out on a road trip in a rental RC, Forky jumps out of the window and Woody follows after him. It’s only when Woody finds Forky and walks him to the rest stop does Woody more thoroughly explain Forky’s purpose as Bonnie’s toy does he finally understand. That night, Woody talks about his own experience with Bonnie and changes the topic to Andy’s childhood along with the events of the previous movies. This scene not only gives us a nostalgic reminder of the prequels, but it also tells us that even after a year, Woody still misses Andy and his attachment to Andy is still strong even when he has another kid.

Connecting this scene back to the Pixar shorts, Woody appears to be happy in Bonnie’s room and is well loved and played with. He never once looks like he’s lost or missing something and Andy is hardly, if ever, mentioned. This could be because those shorts are meant to be happy and cheerful, and there’s no need to explore Woody’s character in depth. Another theory is that because Woody is played with and loved by Bonnie that he doesn’t feel the need to think back on Andy. As long as he’s making a child happy, Woody is happy. But going back to the beginning of the movie, it’s implied that Bonnie has been picking other toys over Woody for at least a few weeks, and this could have potentially gone on for months between Toy Story of Terror!, which takes place around six months after the third movie, and Toy Story 4. For further context, both the third and fourth movies take place in August, which means the special took place in February.

If Bonnie slowly stopped playing with Woody only six months after she got him, and continued this pattern for another six months up until the beginning of Toy Story 4, then Woody would have been greatly impacted by this. He was already far down the list of Bonnie’s favorite toys and he knew this, but in the montage where Bonnie kept losing Forky, she never noticed that Woody was gone too and never acknowledged him when she found him with Forky, it was as if Woody had gone completely invisible to Bonnie. This doesn’t mean that Bonnie is a bad kid. She’s very sweet and treats all her toys well. But she’s a child and children grow out of different toys at different stages, and even though she’s only five years old in the events of the movie, she stopped playing with Woody just out of preference. And while I feel that the movie didn’t make this point strong enough, it did also play a key factor in Woody’s decision at the end of the film.

Woody, Bo Peep, and Forky seemed to be the only major toy characters of this movie. The only other characters that got significant roles are Jessie, Buzz, Duke Caboom, Ducky and Bunny, and Gabby Gabby. The other new or cameo characters, such as Officer Giggle McDimples, Billy, Goat, and Gruff the sheep, and Combat Carl play minor roles in the film, but overall help the plot in a fun, enjoyable way. What I found significant is that the rest of the gang are hardly involved with Woody and Forky’s adventure other than going with Bonnie on the road trip. The toys that we know as Andy’s toys are more ingrained into the group that we know as Bonnie’s toys before she got Andy’s toys. Therefore, with the exception of Woody, Jessie, and Buzz, they all got minor roles and speaking parts so collectively, they contribute to the plot by being Bonnie’s “other” toys.

As for Buzz, fans thought that his lack of involvement in the plot could have been handled better. He had one major conversation with Woody when Buzz noticed that he was struggling to get Forky to be Bonnie’s toy. Woody talked about his "inner voice" that told him this was what he needed to do, but Buzz misunderstood and thought that “inner voice” just meant Woody’s pull string or Buzz’s buttons that made noises and talked. This became an overused running gag the rest of the movie when Buzz was trying to save Woody and only listened to what his buttons said. This is strange, because this isn’t the first time Buzz had to save Woody, and he had been in more difficult situations than this, but his wits and quick thinking that he possessed in the previous movies all but disappeared only as a means to continue a running joke. Fans described Buzz’s behavior as a “one trick pony” and “out of character”. Buzz’s lack of involvement in the plot was also unsatisfying to watch and had he had more of an adventure with Woody in the fourth movie, that would have further cemented the ending in a more justified and emotional way.

Jessie, on the other hand, played a much smaller role than Buzz. This could be justified because her character arc had the most focus in Toy Story 2 and Toy Story of Terror!, where we learn about her past in the former and where she overcomes her fears in the latter. Given the length of the movie, it made sense that Jessie wasn’t as involved as fans were hoping for, but she did eventually get her share of the spotlight. At the beginning of the movie, Bonnie gave Jessie Woody’s badge and made her sheriff, and after playtime, Jessie returned his badge. Nearing the end, Jessie pops the tire of the rental RC in order to give Woody, Buzz, and Forky more time to return, and at the end, she has a heartfelt moment with Bo and Woody, where Woody gives Jessie his badge and symbolizes that moment of making her the new sheriff of the gang. In the after credits scene, Bonnie just finished her first day of first grade and Jessie hid in her bookbag and returned with another toy that Bonnie made. This scene mimicked the scene where Woody brought home Forky, which establishes that a full year later, Jessie remains the unofficial leader of the gang (and I say unofficial because Woody wasn’t the leader in Bonnie’s room. Dolly had the role as the head toy, so him promoting Jessie meant little when Dolly is still the leader) and the toys have moved on from the year before.

Along with the reintroduction of old characters, we have several new characters that played major roles. The most significant of these characters is Gabby Gabby, who we’ll call Gabby for short, a defected talking doll that many suspected was the antagonist of the movie but was just misunderstood, even if her methods were unethical. She’s a doll that was manufactured in the late 1950s, around the same time Woody was made, and like Woody, Gabby has a string that’s supposed to talk when you pull it, but her voice box was defected right out of the factory. Gabby blames her defect as why she was never played with.

The owner of the antique store has a grandchild named Harmony that Gabby wants to play with, but Gabby believes that she can’t get Harmony’s attention unless she has a working voice box. It’s implied in the movie that she created an infamous reputation for herself by befriending the unsettling ventriloquist dolls all named Benson and using them to intimidate the other toys. The reason for this isn’t made clear, although it might be because Gabby didn’t want any competition with another toy, let alone another doll like Bo Peep. If another doll had been chosen over Gabby, especially by Harmony, she would have felt robbed of what she thought belonged to her. Because we know that Bo and Gabby had past interactions prior to the events of the movie, this might contribute to the reasons why Bo left the antique store and wasn’t initially willing to return. Gabby eventually got her happy ending, but it wasn’t what she or the audience expected.

When Gabby notices that Woody has a similar voice box as she does, she tries to forcedly take it from him and Woody runs away leaving Forky behind. When she’s holding Forky captive, he naively tells Gabby everything that Woody told him the night before. From Andy’s childhood to him moving away to college, to how his new kid doesn’t love Woody nearly as much as Andy loved Woody. When Woody returns again with reinforcement, she tries to take his voice box again, except this time the Bensons pull Woody’s string so hard the fabric in his back starts tearing. Woody is so persistent in going back in there a third time to save Forky, it’s uncertain whether he or any of the other toys are aware that his back is torn. If they are, no one made any mention of it. Bunny, on the other hand, tore his side wide open and a large ball of stuffing fell out. When Woody saw this, he just picked it up and pushed it back in Bunny while encouraging them to try again. With Bunny’s stuffing falling out and Woody’s adrenaline, it made sense that his own injury wasn’t made a central focus in that scene, although I do believe it could have used more emphasis.

Now going in the store alone, Woody tries to get Forky back but is caught by Gabby. She uses the information that Forky gave her to convince him to give her his voice box, on top of holding Forky captive. It wasn’t made clear whether or not that scene was intended to put her on a more level footing as Woody to get him to see things from her perspective, but that wouldn’t be an accurate description of what actually happened. Gabby collected that information from Forky to manipulate and coerce Woody into giving his voice box to her. She finishes her monologue by saying that Woody spent years with a child who loved him a lot, and all Gabby was asking for was one moment of what Woody had, and that could only be possible with his voice box. Woody, who has been backed into a metaphorical corner with his friend held hostage, agrees in exchange for Forky.

The scene changes to Woody regaining consciousness and Benson sewing his back shut. Gabby is delighted that her new voice box works and thanks Woody for his cooperation, although granted, he never had a choice to begin with. Gabby made it clear that she fully intended on taking his voice box with or without Woody’s consent, but her coercion changed his mind to give it willingly. Woody’s behavior after the surgery doesn’t seem to change so much. He was somewhat quiet in that scene, but he rebounded far too quickly. Not only was Woody willing to sacrifice his voice box to save Forky, but he appeared to have adapted without his pull string all too quickly. What is odd is that no one, not even Buzz or Jessie, makes any mention of it at all. It’s never mentioned again after the surgery scene.

Fans would argue that Woody and his friends reacting to him losing his string should have had more screen time and more of a central turning point in the plot. After all, Woody is an antique doll that was well treated for decades and is dedicated to keeping himself in a good condition, and he was lucky enough to be in a home where the family fixes their toys instead of throwing them away. In Toy Story 2, Woody feared he would no longer be loved by Andy because his arm was torn. In the first and second movies, Woody shows a strong attachment to his hat, an accessory that he doesn’t necessarily need, but felt more whole with. In all the previous movies, Woody uses his pull string to get him out of tough situations. He used his string to help him and Jessie jump off a moving plane in the climax of the second movie. Now that string is gone, so we should expect Woody to react strongly like he lost something he can’t get back, but that moment was never there. It was never lingered on or discussed and fans felt that it deserved more attention, and I agree.

I would also wonder if Woody losing his string necessary to the plot or to his or Gabby’s character arcs. If this element had been given more attention to the plot, I would argue its justification. Since this isn’t the case, let’s look at the impact of Woody’s sacrifice on the recipient. Gabby claims that she was never played with because her voice box is broken, and while it’s logical that played a role, I’m skeptical if her voice box is the only reason for not being played with. I say this because, without her string, Gabby is still a working doll in good condition that can still be played with as a non-talking doll. It’s likely that Gabby only believes that her defect is the sole cause of why she’s never played with because otherwise, she’ll start to question if she is doing something wrong or if her appearance is to blame.

It's also likely because, as we find out later, Gabby was only trying to get the attention of one child rather than that of any child that came in the store. Gabby was so sure that Harmony was destined to be her kid because of her frequency in the antique store and her similarities to the illustrations of the child in Gabby’s book. It just never occurred to her that the reason why she couldn’t get harmony’s attention was just that Harmony wasn’t interested in a toy like her. As we’ve seen in the movie, Harmony is a careless child when it comes to her toys. Even toys that aren’t hers aren’t well cared for and looked after. We see her leave the antique store with Woody, and when she’s not looking, Woody runs off, meaning that Harmony lost him. Yet, she’s not at all upset about losing one of her grandmother’s sale items and keeps looking around for more toys to play with. Woody is likely not the first toy she lost, and any toy she does show interest in doesn’t last for long.

After years of seeing Harmony going through all those toys, one would think that Gabby would eventually find out that she wasn’t the child for her, but Gabby was deep in denial, as she was with her belief that her voice box was the only reason she couldn’t get Harmony’s attention. Instead of Gabby realizing that before Woody gave up his voice box, she had to realize the hard way, by being thrown aside by Harmony, that it just wasn’t meant to be. That scene was painful for fans to watch and for Woody to watch Gabby being thrown out. Years of her pining and Woody’s eventual sacrifice felt to the audience like it was all for nothing. Later, Gabby would get a proper character arc ending, but the path towards that felt shaky, especially when considering Bo’s message towards Woody and his decision at the end of the movie.

When Gabby is rejected by Harmony, Woody tells her that Harmony was not her only chance and she should come with them to find other kids to love. So Woody, Forky, Bo Peep, Buzz, Duck and Bunny, and Gabby make their way back to the RC, but Gabby stops when she sees a crying child who’s lost from her parents. The other toys notice this too and help Gabby get the child’s attention. The little girl sees Gabby, picks her up and pulls her string (with the now working voice box) and asks if she’s lost too. Having a doll with her helps the little girl get the courage she needed to talk to a nearby police officer to help her find her parents. The child and her parents are reunited only a moment later, and the girl says that the doll she found had helped her.

That scene wraps up Gabby’s character arc, but it brings to question if her having a working voice box was necessary. I personally don’t believe that the child would have rejected Gabby if her voice box was broken, but I also believe that her having a working voice box made the scene stronger and more emotional. It would not have had the same effect on either the little girl or to the audience if she remained defected. In this case, I would justify the necessity of Woody’s sacrifice for Gabby, but I cannot stress enough how much I wished it was more focused on in the movie.

After that last scene with Gabby, the gang is reunited at the roof of the rental. At this point, Bonnie’s parents were clearly well behind schedule and baffled and exhausted by all the defects their rental was facing (which was only the toys inside the RC stalling the family as long as possible without getting caught), which almost led to Mr. Anderson’s arrest. With what little time they had left in both the movie’s time limit and plot-wise, it made sense that the conclusion was rushed, although fans agree it should have stretched out longer for a more appropriate ending. During the movie, Bo Peep made it abundantly clear that she was happy being a lost toy, and she believed that there was more to life than belonging to a child, so Bo did not want to join Woody and Buzz to be one of Bonnie’s toys. After all, she’s made out of porcelain and has a broken arm. That itself would be enough for most kids to reject a toy.

Realizing that Bo wasn’t going with them, Woody was faced with a choice: Either stay with the love of his life and dear friend he hasn’t seen for a decade, or say goodbye to her again and stay reunited with his friends he’s known to love like family, but belong to a child who no longer loved him. Fans walking out of movie theatres are at war over whether Woody made the right decision, or if this was an elaborate money-grabbing ploy made by Pixar to create a new setup for the next Toy Story sequel or special.

Whether he made the right choice or not, it’s obvious that the movie’s ending would not have had the same controversy had Woody decided to stay with Buzz and the rest of the gang. After all, Woody and Buzz have been an iconic duo for 24 years and no one could ever imagine their permanent separation prior to the Toy Story 4 conclusion. There are times where they came close, such as Woody almost choosing to become part of a museum display in Japan rather than staying as Andy’s toy and Woody choosing to go back with Andy to college while Buzz and the rest of the toys stay in Sunnyside Daycare. This time, however, Woody actually follows through, choosing to stay a lost toy with Bo rather than continuing his life as Bonnie’s toy.

Some fans were upset that Woody chose a love interest over his best friend, although I would argue that what happened is more complex than that. Don’t forget that Bo Peep was Woody’s friend too, and Bo was good friends with Buzz and Jessie. And yes, Woody and Bo Peep are technically exes, but as far as we know neither has pursued another love interest in their times apart, and both are trying to rekindle what they had when they reunite after nine years without each other. What Woody and Bo Peep had was special and significant in both their lives and in the heat of the moment, it would have been difficult for Woody to say goodbye to Bo only after their short time back together.

I also want to bring back the point that Bonnie no longer cared for having Woody as a toy even though she only had him for a relatively short time. Had he stayed with her, she would only have continued to play with other toys over him. He might still have been played with a few more times, but they would be increasingly infrequent until she eventually stopped. He would likely stay in Bonnie’s closet until she donates him to Sunnyside Daycare, where her mom works, as seems to be the implied fate of the rest of the toys in Bonnie’s room.

At the time, I would doubt that Woody was thinking that far ahead. All he would think about is all that time not being played with by Bonnie and him missing Andy even though he has long since gone to college. Some would even question if playtimes Woody did have with Bonnie were even enough, because he never had the same connection with Bonnie as he did with Andy. Likewise, most kids never had the same connection with their toys as Andy did with Woody. This strong relationship that Woody had with his kid for his entire childhood was resurfaced in the fallout of Andy giving his toys to Bonnie. At least once Woody slipped by accidentally calling Bonnie “Andy”, and despite the passage of time between the third and fourth movies, Woody still can’t seem to move on from him. In the scene where Gabby convinces Woody to give her his voice box, she brings all of Woody’s internal struggles to the surface in a way that he could no longer ignore.

This brings us back to Bo, who exposed Woody to a life he was already somewhat familiar with of being a lost toy. We are introduced to other childless toys such as Duke Kaboom, who was rejected thirty years ago for not living up to what the commercials advertised. Despite how long ago it was, Duke is still not over what happened with the negative experience he had with the only kid he ever belonged to. Duke’s past had a strong impact on his behavior and his stunt performances during the movie. Then we have Ducky and Bunny, cheaply made carnival toys that have never been won for three years, and all they want is to get a kid of their own. Lastly, there’s Officer Giggle McDimples, who seems to be the only toy other than Bo who is content with being a lost toy, however, she also doesn’t get a backstory so no one can know for sure unless we get more background information around her. Since Giggle is such a small toy, it’s likely she was either lost and forgotten by a child or was thrown out for being a safety hazard.

With all these toys we are introduced to with tragic or implied tragic backstories with kids, their relation to what Bo is trying to tell Woody shouldn’t be left uncovered. After Bo’s reintroduction into the film, she tries to tell Woody that there is more to being a toy than staying in a child’s room. This is a sharp contrast to the message they send in the previous movies in the franchise, particularly the scene in Toy Story 2 where Buzz tells Woody that there’s no point of living as a toy if it’s not spent with a child. When Toy Story 4 brings on this whole new perspective on what it means to be a toy, it completely shakes the foundation of what the previous movies were all about: A toy’s loyalty to their kid.

This new perspective in of itself doesn’t mean it gives the franchise a bad name, but it’s the way the message was executed that makes the point of the movie so confusing. For example, when Gabby was rejected by Harmony, neither Woody nor Bo told her that she still had worth and didn’t need to be loved by a kid in order to have value. Instead, she was told that there are other kids out there and to try again. If the message was supposed to be that toys don’t need a child to be happy, then why wouldn’t that message apply to one of the major characters of the film who is going through that very same problem?

Furthermore, Duke Kaboom and Ducky and Bunny never got over the fact that they don’t have a child to love in the film either. Duke believes that his whole purpose is to redeem himself where he failed as a toy thirty years ago by pushing himself towards impossibly high standards with the encouragement of the other toys. While Bo Peep does try to avoid the topic of his kid altogether and tries to get Duke to think about who he is now rather than in the past, Duke just doesn’t seem happy as a lost toy. Like Woody, he is still longing for a child that has long since outgrown him. And despite Bo’s message throughout the film, Ducky and Bunny are both still excited over the idea of having a kid in the end.

In the after credits scenes, Woody, Bo, and the other new characters are helping carnival toys by helping kids cheat at games and winning them toys to give away until there are no toys left. After Ducky and Bunny’s comical suggestion of what to do now all the toys were given away, Woody says they will continue to give more toys more homes with kids. What this scene tells the audience is that now that Woody isn’t confined to being a toy belonging to a child, he is free to go wherever he likes and do whatever he wants, and what Woody and Bo are doing is giving other toys a chance to have a life, or even just one chance of playtime, with a loving child.

This resonates back to what Gabby says to Woody, about how Woody spent years living a happy life with countless playtimes with a special kid, and all she was asking for was one of those moments. It’s likely that the scene where Gabby found her own child gave Woody the idea that this is something he wanted to keep doing. He spent almost twenty wonderful and fulfilling years with one child that loved him very much, and Woody knew how lucky he was to have a kid like Andy. Since then, Woody has never felt that same fulfillment of being a toy, even when he was played with by Bonnie.

What Woody was thinking on the roof of the RC might not necessarily be that his time as Bonnie’s toy was up, but that his time of being a toy belonging to a child at all was done (for now, at least). His previous purpose of being there for Andy no longer applies, and he just doesn’t have the same dedication towards Bonnie because Bonnie didn’t love Woody enough and was happy as long as she had Forky. He spent most of the movie trying to get Forky back home to Bonnie, both because he wanted to be useful for a kid that didn’t love him and because he wanted Forky to fulfill his own purpose as a toy. After Forky and Bonnie were reunited, Woody no longer felt useful to Bonnie. There was nothing he could do to make her happy, so he decided that Bonnie no longer needed him. That didn’t mean that he wanted another kid, because he’s still not emotionally ready for another permanent child yet, but he still wanted to make kids happy like how he made Bonnie and Andy happy.

Woody discovering his purpose and Bo’s message towards Woody are slightly misaligned, but they can both be true without contradiction. For a G-Rated movie, Pixar struggled to get this message across towards a younger and a broad audience, because someone would really need to dig to determine this for themselves, and I don’t think I can fully understand what the message is supposed to be. What I think Toy Story 4 is trying to tell people is that you don’t have to limit yourself to your previous understanding of what makes you happy. You’re allowed to rethink your purpose and do what you believe is right, even if it means making sacrifices and letting go from what you love. This is a heavier interpretation of the movie, especially a Pixar movie targeted towards children, but given the obscurity of the message, I don’t think that this is what most kids will interpret when walking out of movie theatres.

Toys don’t need a child to be happy, all toys deserve a child’s love, and it’s okay for a toy to leave a child in exchange for happiness. These are some lighter messages someone could interpret from Toy Story 4. These all exist together in the same movie while not necessarily contradicting each other, which would explain why the purpose of the movie is difficult to understand. I believe this could be better understood by comparing this message to a feminist message. Let’s replace the relationships between children and toys with romantic interests between adults (I know that sounds like a stretch, and try not to think too hard about it, please just roll with this) and apply the same messages from Toy Story 4 in a context of pursuing a romantic relationship. You don’t need a lover to be happy. Everyone deserves someone else’s love. It’s okay to leave a partner in exchange for happiness. These all sound similar to the feminist ideology that says that no one should be in a relationship that they are unhappy in, and just because you’re single doesn’t mean you can’t live a happy, fulfilling life.

In this context, the movie starts making a little more sense, but without a real climatic scene or a concrete turning point in the plot like all the other movies have, it’s hard to put that together clearly. The layout of the plot is just a series of heartwarming scenes and action-packed scenes with humor packed in between. The other movies had a much more consistent layout of the plot with a conclusion that tied all loose ends, while the fourth movie only left more questions than it answered. That must have been Pixar’s intention because Toy Story 3 was so well concluded that the creators couldn’t do anything more with it other than a few shorts and a couple of specials. Now that they opened the franchise back up with this movie, Pixar can continue and add onto the Toy Story world however they want. I couldn’t explain why else they would want to create another Toy Story sequel just for that film to end the way it did.

Predictably, this means that Disney will release either another sequel, a series of shorts, or even a TV series. It’s still too early to tell what exactly Disney has in mind, but it’s safe to say that the next work in the Toy Story franchise will focus on Woody, Bo, and the rest of their friends living freely as lost toys, likely also centering on Bo and Woody’s rekindled romance. This may also mean we’ll no longer see any future content of Buzz and Jessie and the other toys in Bonnie’s room unless they reunite somehow in the future. As someone who’s grown to love the Toy Story series, it’s hard to imagine further content without Woody and Buzz together (not counting the short-running Disney TV show, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command).

Did Woody make the right choice at the end of the movie? When considering Woody’s character development in the last three movies, his decision in the fourth movie seemed sudden, fast-paced, and borderlines what we know of him as a character. After all, the last three movies end with Woody and Buzz side-by-side, with the promise of sticking together “To infinity and beyond”, with the iconic song, “You Got a Friend in Me” by Randy Newman playing until the credits roll. The Toy Story 4 ending is so glaringly different by showing Woody and Buzz parting ways, it’s no wonder why fans were so upset by the ending.

However, if you ignore the prequels and look at the fourth movie as its own, the message of the film helps settle the ending as appropriate to the storyline. If the plot of Toy Story 4 were more similar to the first three movies, then the storyline would have made it much harder to justify how it ends, but because of how the story is laid out, it felt like the only appropriate ending. I still believe that if Woody and Buzz were to separate for good, then Buzz should have played more of a role than a recurring joke and Woody and Buzz should have had one more big adventure together before having a longer and more heartfelt, farewell moment.

This may have happened if the movie were allowed more screen time, but unfortunately, there’s not much that you can change on an already released movie other than ignoring it or accepting it. Personally, I felt disappointed with the movie, partially because I set my standards so high following Toy Story 3, and because I expected Pixar to respect the source material and not stray away with redundant sequels like other franchises have done.

I’m not saying it was a bad movie or not worth watching. Toy Story 4 is still a good movie to watch. It’s still funny, emotional, beautiful, relatable, and of course, tells a new story of characters we’ve known to love. The details in the animation are astonishing and deceivingly lifelike and the soundtrack contains both the classic Toy Story songs we’ve known to love and new songs that stay true to heart. Fans even gave kudos when they noticed a scene where two moms drop off and later pick up their child from kindergarten orientation, and in the same scene, we see a boy wearing a hearing aid while talking to an adult.

Whether Toy Story 4 is a good movie to you or not is purely subjective, but most critics and audience members view the film in a positive light. As of July 14, 2019, it has a 98% Tomatometer rating and a 94% audience score on the movie rating website, Rotten Tomatoes. Despite its high rating, there is no absence of criticism from both professional and amateur voices, myself included. Thank you for reading this, and if I missed anything you felt is important to talk about, please comment and let me know.

**Author's Note:**

> If you leave a comment, whether if you're agreeing, disagreeing, or making a comment or question about my review, I'll post it as a second chapter and comment/answer what you wrote unless you explicitly say you don't want your comment published. I'll only do this for comments made before August 1, 2019, but comments are still encouraged after that date.


End file.
